JimNtexas said:
The MIT program to make a roadable lightplane looks very real, I expect they will fly their prototype fairly soon.
Yagottbef'inkiddnme.
What do you base "soon" on? If you look at their own website, so far they have a design for the wing folding mechanism on paper (on paper only), and they have done a little wind tunnel testing on a 1/5 scale foam mock-up. By any measure, that is a long, long, way from flying a prototype "soon", or perhaps by "soon" you meant 5 years from now?
I wouldn't put the Terrafugia folks in the in the same class as Moller. I don't have any reason to believe that they are frauds, just hopelessly unrealistic. It looks like they’ve assembled quite a bit of brainpower, but not much common sense. Have you looked at their aircraft specifications? They're going to certify it in the Light Sport Category. That means a maximum gross weight of 1320 lb. That's not much. That's about the weight of an early Taylorcraft, or a j 3 cub. You ever sat in one in one of those? Not much structure around you .... you want to drive something that flimsy in traffic, tooling around with soccer moms in their Expeditions, yakking on their cell phones? Oh yeah, in addition to the 1320 max gross weight, it will have a 430 lb useful load. That means an empty weight of 890 lb. That’s about the empty weight of a Light Sport category Taylorcraft.....but the Taylorcraft doesn’t have a drivetrain, and it doesn't have a mechanism which automatically folds the each wing in two places. both of those add weight, a lot of weight. But hey, these are clever kids, and they're going to use all the latest composites that Piper and Taylor didn't have. They might be able to do it. I'm skeptical that they'll be able to bring it in under the LSA weight limit, and I'm *very* skeptical that they'll be able to do that and have a 430 lb. useful load, but likely, in a decade or so, and after spending millions and millions of dollar of other people's money (that's the best kind, isn't it?), they'll come up with something that flies and has folding wings. They *might* even be able to run it through FAA certification (another 10 years and several million more dollars) So, now what? Well, they will have a neat little gizmo and a lot of broke ex-friends.
The thing they *won't* have is a bunch of people buying them. There have already been 3 airplane cars that gained certification. without exception, none were produced, there really wasn't much real interest in them (interest as in people actually wanting to buy them) They aren't very good airplanes and they aren't very good cars, just like the Terrafugia Transition won't be a very good car and won't be a very good airplane. If I want a "not a very good car" and a "not a very good airplane" I can buy a geo metro and a piper tomahawk. I won't have to wait 20 years and I can buy them both, now for about $50k instead of half a million dollars. (and the Tomahawk will probably be a better airplane then the Transition and the Geo Metro will almost certainly be a *much* better car then the Transition)
